Chapter 3 -- Memories
"Good morning, Amelia..." Cole said gently as he walked into the living-room.
She looked up from her computer, smiling at him. "Hey!"
"Where's Jonathan?"
"It's Monday. He had to go to work. He left hours ago. Breakfast's in the fridge if you're feeling hungry."
"Not really, no."
"How're you feeling?"
He shrugged. "Still tired and weak. And confused." Sighing deeply, he added, "I miss Mel."
She rose and walked over to him. "We'll find her. Jonathan's been working on it, and we will find her."
"Thank you for all your help." He raised his hand to her throat, then dropped it, frowning and closing his eyes. Too much like touching Mel... He liked this woman who was helping him very much, but she was no Mel, even if everything she said and did seemed to remind him of something Mel had once said or did. Everything reminded him of Mel yet he could remember nothing of himself.
Amelia took his hand gently and walked him to the couch. Sitting down with him, she asked, "Why don't you tell me about her?"
He shook his head. "I don't remember."
"Tell me what you do remember..." she suggested gently. "Maybe it'll jog your memory."
He nodded and leaned back, closing his eyes. It was not hard to remember things about Mel, what was hard was stringing the fragmented memories together into any kind of coherent whole. A touch, a smile, a fragment of conversation, but nothing that even resembled context. He could not even remember what she looked like. Except for one feature.
"She has pretty eyes." He smiled. "They're beautiful, and so expressive." He opened his eyes and glanced at Amelia. "That color..." he pointed to her.
"Do I look like her?" Amelia asked curiously.
He shook his head. "I don't think so. I can't remember." He reached up and gently touched her hair, closing his eyes and feeling it. Mel's felt different, he was sure, although he could not recall what it looked like. "I don't think so..." he repeated, shaking his head and rising.
"Hey, it's going to be okay..." she assured him, getting up and touching his shoulder. "I have no idea what this must be like for you, but I know that it can't be easy. I'll help you however I can."
Tears in his eyes. "I need your help, Mel."
Mel reaching up and wiping away the tears, smiling lovingly. "I know..."
He turned around and looked at Amelia. "Thank you." Shaking his head, he walked to the bookshelf. "You must read a lot."
She nodded. "All the time. You read much?"
"I don't know."
She walked to the shelf and examined the hundred of volumes thoughtfully. Finally she pulled one down. "Here, try this one."
"'Nightfall and other short stories'?" he read.
She nodded. "It's science fiction."
"Science fiction?" he repeated, regarding her quizzically.
"Yeah, you know... um, aliens and stuff."
"Aliens?"
Mel's frantic voice, "Aliens?"
Cole dropped the book, startled by how strongly the memory of that one-word question had shaken him. Amelia bent to retrieve it, glancing up at him. He was shaking slightly, looking almost afraid.
"Okay, no Asimov for you." She replaced the book and pulled down her copy of 'Around the World in 80 Days'. "This is good. You'll like this."
"What is it about?"
"A bet."
"A bet?" He frowned thoughtfully. "Wager?" he queried.
She nodded. "Yeah."
Cole nodded and glanced down at the book. "I'll read it."
She smiled. "Cool. It's a fairly quick read." She nodded back to her computer. "I need to get back to work, okay?"
"What do you do?"
"I'm a writer."
"What do you write?"
"Textbooks, mostly. Chemistry. Sometimes I write articles for the Scientific American or Omni."
"Oh."
He nodded and walked over to the couch, opening the book and briefly wondering if he would, having forgotten so much else, remember how to read. Fortunately, he did more or less remember, and after a few minutes, he was quite absorbed in converting the symbols on the page into information in his mind. The book was about a man in London.
He stopped reading, frowning thoughtfully. London... was in England. He had been there with Mel, once. Why had they gone all the way to London? Mel's friend was there, that was why. They had been visiting her and her fiancé. He closed his eyes, trying to remember something, anything, about their time in London. An overheard snatch of conversation recurred to him.
Mel had been explaining to Jess that she was not 'involved' with Cole.
Jess had wanted to know, "Well, then, why are you sharing a room?"
"To save money! It's not like we'll be sleeping in the same bed..."
Cole rubbed his eyes thoughtfully, trying without luck to construct a mental image of either Mel or Jess. A confused flurry of images flashed through his mind, overpowering every other memory and making it impossible to focus on any one.
Mel's eyes... a man's unpleasant laughter... a smell like flowers but also, strangely, different... overheard fragments of a dozen conversations, all experienced at once... the taste of beer... the feel of Mel's hair against his cheek... the sound of her quiet laughter... her arm around him, supporting him.
Every time he tried to focus on one of the fragments, the dull pain in his head increased exponentially. He stopped when the pain in his head became unbearable. Sighing, he rose, setting the book aside. He walked into the kitchen and helped himself to several aspirin.
Amelia looked up from the computer. "Headache again?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
She rose and joined him, lightly touching her hand to his forehead. "Feels like you're running a fever, too."
He shrugged. "I feel fine. Except for the headache and how tired I am."
"Why don't you go lie down?" she suggested gently. "Being in a dark room might help your head."
"Am I sick?" he asked her curiously.
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe you... hit your head or something."
"Tell me where you found me?" he asked, suddenly curious to know what had happened to him to cause this.
"Get some rest. We'll talk later."
"Yes, Amelia."
He nodded and walked into the bedroom. Since he was still very weak and it was downstairs, Amelia had made him take that one and had moved herself upstairs to the guest-room. She was very good to him, like Mel. Sighing and shaking his head, he closed the door and pulled his shirt off. He started to take his pants off, but paused, reaching into the pockets. There were two strange metal objects in one of the pockets. How had they gotten there? Did they belong to him?
He supposed they must have. Shrugging, he tucked them deeply into his pocket so that they would not fall out and pulled his pants off, folding them neatly and placing them on a chair, along with his shirt. He pulled back the blankets and started to climb in, then paused. A dozen variants of the phrase 'have you been at it all night?', all in Mel's voice, flooded his mind. He frowned, wondering how many all-nighters he had pulled since he met Mel, and why Mel was so interested in them. He shook his head, deciding that they were probably just attempts on her part to make conversation first thing in the morning.
As he climbed into bed, another memory edged its way into his consciousness.
He had been working at the computer all night, when Mel's voice distracted him. She was giggling softly from bed and murmuring to someone. He rose and walked over to the bed, curious. She had been wearing red, and looking so very beautiful...
Cole smiled, hanging on to the mental image of a woman, flush from sleep with a slight smile on her face and her blondish hair half-concealing her face. She had a beautiful smile, too, he remembered as he pulled up the blankets, although he still had no real clue what she looked like. What had he been doing working all night when that beautiful creature had been waiting in bed?
Confusion, contentment, frustration, desire so strong it was almost painful, joy, uncertainty, completeness, anxiety... all vied for supremacy when he thought of this amazing creature. Completeness, though, that was the one that overrode all the others. Mel made him complete... and he could not even remember what she looked like.
He shook his head and closed his eyes, feeling weary beyond words. Sleep came quickly and dreamlessly, a welcomed dose of oblivion to the hopelessly confused man.
***
"Hey, how'd it go?" Gwen asked gently as Mel returned to the Watchfire.
"Badly." Mel shook her head and sat down. "Can I have a--"
"Cup of tea?" Gwen suggested.
"Well, I was going to say--"
"Cup of tea..." Gwen repeated gently but firmly. "Followed by a nice nap."
Mel stared at her, startled. It was the closest Gwen had even come to questioning anything she had said. "Okay, mom."
Gwen smiled and wandered off to make Mel a cup of tea, leaving Mel to shake her head. Gwen was right, though, even if she had not spoken aloud. Mel had been drinking far too much lately. It was not healthy and it was not helping. She smiled at Gwen when she returned with a steaming mug.
"You'll like this, it's chamomile. It'll help you sleep." Gwen rested her elbows on the bar and watched Mel as she took her first sip.
"It's good." Mel smiled at her, noticing for the first time that, while both ears were pierced in more than one place, she wore two different styles of earrings on her earlobes. The one on the left was a small silver stud, the other was a dangling silver triangle.
"You like?" she asked, noticing the scrutiny Mel was paying to the dangling earring. "Belonged to my mother, but she lost its partner."
"And you wear it anyway?" Mel asked.
She shrugged. "Sentimental, you know." She touched it absently. "One of the few things I have left of my folks." She reached up and touched the cuff on the top of her right ear. "This used to be my dad's wedding-band."
"Silver?" Mel asked.
"White gold. Had it cut down and reshaped. You like?"
"It's beautiful." Mel leaned closer to examine the engravings on its surface. "They both are."
She smiled. "Thanks. You should finish that before it gets cold. I can get more honey for it if you'd like..."
"No, it's fine." Mel smiled and took a long drink of the tea. It really did taste wonderful. "Thanks for being around..." she muttered, knowing it sounded silly.
"Not a problem." Gwen smiled at her. "They'll find him, don't worry."
"I can't help but worrying."
"Don't worry..." Gwen repeated firmly. "Fate works in strange ways, but it does not bring people together to rip them apart. Not without good reason."
"What if fate has a good reason in this case?" Mel asked softly.
"Trust me when I tell you it does not. You'll find Mister Hauser when the time is right."
"Easy for you to say."
"Yeah, I guess it is." Gwen nodded slightly. "But the two of you are too right for each other for this to turn out any way but happy. Have faith."
"Faith..." Mel repeated.
"Such a tiny word, isn't it?" Gwen asked gently. "Yet there's so much to it."
"What do you have faith in?"
"Me?"
Gwen regarded her with wide eyes and a crooked grin and, for a second, Mel was sure that she was going to say that there was nothing in which she had faith. Then her smile softened slightly and she patted Mel's hand gently, reminding Mel of her grandmother.
"Yeah, you..." Mel nodded.
"I have faith in the shape of the universe, and in the certainty that for every darkness there is a light that will shine through it." She patted Mel's hand again and then turned her back, picking up a glass that needed to be cleaned. "I also believe that love will always find a way." Having washed the glass, she turned to face Mel again. "Don't you agree?"
"Sometimes. Not always."
Gwen smiled faintly. "If you say so..."
Mel stared at her, surprised by the young woman's quiet certainty. "You seem so sure..."
"I am. Or maybe I'm just a romantic fool." Gwen grinned at her. "Why don't you go get some rest."
"I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep."
"The chamomile will help with that."
Mel nodded. She did feel tired, and calmer than she had in days. "Okay. I think I'll try that."
"Okay. Yell if you need anything."
"Will do. Thanks, Gwen." She turned and started for the stairs.
"Sleep well, Miss Porter."
Gwen smiled after Mel, shaking her head. Her new employer was a nice woman, but she had a lot to learn about matters of faith. And, judging from her continued denials that there was anything between her and Cole, she also had a great deal to learn about matters of love.
Mel sighed as she closed and locked the door behind her. Gwen had been right about at least one thing. She needed sleep. Shaking her head, she walked into her bedroom, the only room in the house with no memories of Cole attached. Not that it mattered. She still saw his face as soon as she closed her eyes. That in itself was not uncommon.
Sighing, she opened her eyes and pulled off her clothes, changing into a heavy pair of pajamas. Red... she had worn them in London. She almost changed out of them, not wanting to deal with that set of memories right now. He had come so close to death...
"No..." she said firmly, climbing under the covers and turning off the lights. "No unpleasant memories, no bad dreams, nothing." She closed her eyes and rolled onto her side. "If you remember one thing about Cole between now and when you wake up, it will be how good it feels to kiss him."
She smiled, wondering how Cole would have reacted if he had seen her lecturing herself in this manner. She loved that bemused expression he gave her when she was doing something that just totally confused him. His expression was normally so serious. Hell, he had even looked serious when he had kissed her. He had been wearing the same, purposeful expression that he assumed when he was walking into a particularly uncertain situation.
Of course, she supposed that, to him, it must have been an uncertain situation. She smiled and sighed gently, loosing herself in the memory. There was something incredibly comforting about it, and as she drifted off to sleep, she could almost feel his lips against hers and his arms around her. As she sank fully into sleep, she retained the sensation of his arms around her, comforting and protecting her, and her sleep was, mercifully, free of the dreams that had been keeping her up since Cole's disappearance.
